abstract = "In the design cycle of a microprocessor core, the unit
is usually refined through a series of subsequent
steps. To deliver a flaw free unit at the end of the
process, in each stage a verification step is required.
While it would be useful to automatically develop the
set of test programs for verification concurrently to
the design, in most of the existing approach
verification is performed manually and starting from
scratch. This paper presented a methodology for the
automatic completion and refinement of existing
verification programs. It shows a new technique for
allowing a Genetic Programming-based framework to
import an existing test-program set and assimilate it
for further test generation. A case study is
considered, in which a sample pipelined processor is
used, and new test programs are generated starting from
existing functional ones. Different metrics are
targeted, and preliminary results are reported, showing
the effectiveness of the method with respect to a pure
random approach.",